Harry Patch: Germans could be invited to First World War memorial service

German representatives could be invited to a national memorial service to give thanks to those who fought in the First World War, following the death of Harry Patch, the last British soldier to serve in the trenches.

Harry Patch died in his sleep at a nursing home in Wells, Somerset, on SaturdayPhoto: PA

By Stephen Adams

8:00AM BST 27 Jul 2009

Patch, 111, died in his sleep at a nursing home in Wells, Somerset, on Saturday.

He was the last remaining soldier on any side to have fought in the trenches.

He had expressed opposition to a state funeral but Gordon Brown has promised that his sacrifice, and those of the millions who fought alongside him, will be remembered in a national memorial service.

Patch's grandson Roger Patch, 52, said that his grandfather "probably would have thought that it was a good idea" to invite the Germans to the service.

However, he stressed that he did not know for sure, because he had never asked him the question.

Details of the service, described by the Prime Minister as a "special commemoration" of those who served during the war, have yet to be finalised.

And a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence left the way open for an act of reconciliation that would see German representatives asked to take part.

The four-year conflict claimed almost a million British lives between 1914 and 1918.

The Last Tommy, as Patch came to be known, did not discuss his war experiences publicly until he reached 100.

In his last decade he did speak out, telling of his haunting memories and his firm belief that those on all sides should be remembered, and that war was never worthwhile.

In 2007 he returned to Passchendaele, where he was almost killed in 1917, to lay two wreaths – one for the British dead and another for Germans killed in the battle.

His funeral will be held in Wells Cathedral but a date has yet to be fixed.

The memorial service is likely to be held in Westminster Abbey this autumn, sources have indicated.

Attendees are set to include the Queen, the Prime Minister and David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party.

Remembrance Sunday has been mooted as a possible date although one well-placed source suggested it could take place sooner than that.

The Ministry of Defence and the Royal British Legion have been planning the event for months, in the event of the deaths of Britain's last surviving Great War veterans.

Mr Brown said in the aftermath of Harry Patch's death: "The noblest of all the generations has left us, but they will never be forgotten."

He went on: "I think it's right that we as a nation have a national memorial service to remember the sacrifice and all the work that was done by those people who served our country during World War One and to remember what we owe to that generation – our freedom, our liberties, the fact that we are a democracy in the world.

"Those men and women during World War One did a huge amount and it's right that we have a special commemoration of what they have done."

Dr Martin Farr, a senior lecturer in history at Newcastle University, said of inviting the Germans: "It would be the right thing to do."

Coming after the recent deaths of Britain's last three servicemen from the Great War, he thought the service would "mark the Last Post for the First World War".

It would act as "almost a balm that this highly traumatic event has passed a very symbolic, but also very real milestone," he explained.

At the beginning of this year, Britain was home to three veterans of 'the war to end all wars' – Harry Patch, Henry Allingham and William Stone .

Stone, one of the last Britons to have seen active service in both world wars, died in January aged 108.

Allingham, the last man to have witnessed the Battle of Jutland, died a week before Patch, aged 113.

One more British serviceman, Claude Choules, 108, survives. He emigrated to Australia in the 1920s.

The former Royal Navy seaman, who was born in Wyre Piddle, Worcs., witnessed the surrender of the German Imperial Navy in November 1918.

Speaking from a nursing home in Perth, Western Australia, he said: "I'm the last man standing, it's an honour."

There are two other known survivors of the war – American Frank Boules, 108, who drove ambulances in England and France; and Canadian John Babcock, 109, who never saw active service.